


Colored Lights

by The_Defeaning_Sound_of_Silence



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Ben is pure, Beverly smokes like there's no tomorrow, Bill just wants his friends to be happy, Eddie is a big fan of Footloose, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Mike is confused, Multi, Polyamory, Romantic Soulmates, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Stanley loves cuddles, richie is a dork
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-10
Updated: 2018-01-10
Packaged: 2019-03-03 06:38:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13335567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Defeaning_Sound_of_Silence/pseuds/The_Defeaning_Sound_of_Silence
Summary: Eddie gets jealous very easily. Especially when some dork with glasses bigger than his face tries to invade his friend group with fellow dorks. Okay, maybe that part isn't so bad.





	Colored Lights

**Author's Note:**

> So Tumblr deleted this and it's for a commision, @trashmouth-reddie on Tumblr go follow her <33

 When it came to thinking about his soulmate, Eddie Kaspbrak was very picky about the qualities he wanted. In his head, he had a mental image of a nice  _ girl _ \-- it was a girl, he forced himself to believe-- who was gracious, and smaller than him. Someone with a nice fashion sense, muted colors or maybe even pastels, to match him. Someone quiet, reserved, calm, and  _ clean _ , most of all. Their music taste would have to be fairly subtle, perhaps classical music or slow dance songs. And most importantly, she would be wearing  _ glasses. _

 His hand trailed up to the small, grey glasses frames marked on his skin, and hidden by his shirt sleeve. The whole world was grey, to everyone who hadn’t met their soulmate, at least. It was common knowledge that when you touched your soulmate for the first time, your soulmark would light up in a certain color, and then you’d gradually see more colors, the longer you spent around them.

 Frankly, Eddie didn’t see the appeal. His mother lived with very little color, and from what she told him, colors were terrible. They caused eye damage, migraines, and strained eyes over time. For a long time, when he was very young, his mother used some of her own makeup to cover his soulmark. But she couldn’t do that forever, and soon he found out. Of course, he was happy to have a soulmark at all, but terrified of what would come of himself if he got too touchy. His mysophobic tendencies only heightened that fear.

 He had two friends, both of which were safe to touch. Bill Denbrough had  already found a soulmate in Stanley “Bird Boy,” Uris, marked by a tiny bluebird on the inside of his wrist, whereas Stan had a red paper boat. That was what he’d told him, as Eddie had no way of seeing the colors for himself. He did notice Bill’s soulmark was a little brighter, and whenever he and Stan were close, his pupils would expand, like he was seeing something that Eddie couldn’t. They were same-sexers, people who were looked down upon by the whole of society for having a partner of the same sex.

 It was bullshit, Eddie thought, because they couldn’t control who was and was not their soulmate. But regardless, it was for that reason that most same-sexers didn’t stay together for very long.

 Going back to his train of thought, Ben Hanscom was his only other friend, and his soulmark was a little greyed-out cigarette, wrapped around a polaroid, and they both knew that Eddie wouldn’t touch the cancer sticks with a thousand-foot pole, and it was rare to see him using polaroids. Unsurprisingly, they weren’t soulmates.

 Eddie stayed awake late nights sometimes, wondering about those glasses. His mother had painted him a picture in his mind, of an awful person who would treat him badly. The  _ girl  _ his mother was sure was his soulmate was someone he wanted nothing to do with.

 But every time he closed his eyes, he could see another person. It was just a blurry outline, really, but he knew a few things about it.  _ He  _ was a  _ boy.  _ And  _ he  _ was the loveliest boy in all of the world, always making him laugh and showing affection in small ways. Eddie wanted that, very badly. As much as he wanted it, though, for the sake of his mother, he didn’t touch  _ anyone,  _ ever.

 In recent days, Bill and Stan’s friend groups had been clashing. They were attached at the hip-- wherever there was Bill, Stan was not far behind, and vice-versa.

 Eddie had found out that Stan himself had a friend group of four total: Stanley, Beverly, Michael, and Richard. He had only ever met two of them, aside from Stanley. Mike and Bev were nice people, Mike’s soulmark was what looked to be a key inserted into a boombox. It, quite clearly, meant that he had two soulmates, as did Ben, because only the key was glowing. It belonged to Beverly herself, whose soulmarks were a horseshoe settled around a book.

 Eddie wasn’t really sure how the colors worked with the whole ‘two soulmates,’ thing, but he did know that they looked perfectly happy together and he didn’t want to mess that up.

 He had yet to meet this, “Richie,” guy, but from the way they described him, he wasn’t exactly the type of person Eddie wanted to be around. Stan obviously cared for him alot, but he told stories of how loud and boisterous he could be, how he had nicknames for  _ everyone  _ and was constantly telling jokes.

 Nope, Eddie definitely did not want to meet him. Especially not while in the middle of a chemistry lesson, when he was trying to  _ focus _ .

 It was around one in the afternoon and the day at Derry High was almost over. Almost. He was happy to know that Bev shared a chemistry class with him, and she was only one table behind him, so the class was a lot more tolerable.

 However, five minutes away from when the bell was going to ring, the door slammed against the back of the wall, jolting everyone in their seats as they struggled to get a look at the culprit.

 “Bev!” Somebody yelled, pointing in the direction of an annoyed-looking Beverly. 

 “I fou- I found… I found out who your other soulmate is,” He wheezed, clearly out of breath from charging down the hallway. Bev’s eyebrows shot up, but the teacher seemed unimpressed. He leaned down, clapping his hands on his knees in show of exhaustion.

 “S- so this guy and I have study hall together. And he’s friends with Big Bill, I think his name is Ben or something but regardless-- he’s your soulmate! I know ‘cause we were talking, just pretty casually, and then I was like, ‘So what do you do for fun?’ and he was like ‘I like to read and listen to music,’ so then I was like, ‘You must be Bev and Mike’s soulmate!’ because his soulmarks are a cigarette and polaroid and you smoke, obviously, and Mike loves taking pictures so anyways, yeah, case closed.” The boy had such a motormouth. He sounded like Eddie when he got nervous, but with a little more pep to his voice. Eddie’s lips pulled into a frown, very upset with his class being interrupted.

 That was, until he turned around, and Eddie could see his face clearly. The first thing that came to Eddie’s mind was one word-- glasses. Half of his face was covered in thick lenses, which made his eyes appear to be three times the size of what they should be. Oh god.

_ Oh god. _

 His glasses were not the only things on his face. He had a light smatter of dark freckles over the bridge of his nose and defined cheekbones, with chocolate colored eyes and chapped pink lips complementing them.

 Eddie sunk down in his chair with a blush on his cheeks. Great, just great. Everyone already thought he was a same-sexer, why not confirm those suspicions by going up to the front of the classroom and kissing that boy right then? Watching as the class saw their world erupt in color, probably one of the more girly ones, going by Eddie’s previous look. The more he thought about it, the more bitter he became. He didn’t even know the boy and he already hated him.

 “Alright fine, jackass, if you’re so sure, take me to this guy,” Bev grumbled as she got up, clearly opposed to the idea of finding her second soulmate. She ignored the teachers pleas for her to stay as she and the boy left the room. Eddie realized that in his whirlwind of complicated emotions, he hadn’t caught most of their conversation.

 It was the end of the day when he met up with Bill again. Ben was in the library, as per usual on Thursday evenings, and Eddie was waiting for Bill or one of his parents to open the door and invite him in for Thursday night movie night. Most often, Ben joined them halfway through, with only mild complaining about their movie choice-- usually either  _ Footloose _ or  _ The Breakfast Club _ \-- and they fell asleep on Bill’s living room floor.

 But someone else answered the door, and it wasn’t who he expected. The boy in front of him was large and lean, with broad shoulders and a deep brown skin.  _ Why the hell was Mike at Bill’s house? _

 “Hey, Eddie! You’re just in time for the movie!” Mike greeted, shuffling backwards a little bit to leave room for Eddie to get in through the doorway. Eddie was confused and malcontented.  **_He_ ** _ was just in time for the movie? His, Bill, Ben’s friendship relied heavily on those movie night sleepovers and suddenly everyone was being invited? To  _ **_their_ ** _ movie night? _

 He figured it might just be Ben wanting to spend more time with his other soulmate. Should he really be so jealous of that? As he walked into the living room, though, those thoughts went right out the window.

 Stanley was sitting in the armchair, on Bill’s lap, arms secured around his neck and head resting on his shoulder, head turned towards the movie. Bev, too, was there, sitting on the couch, but she was waiting expectantly for Mike, who sat down beside her so she could rest her head in his lap, legs stretched out on the rest of the sofa. The real problem, though, that made Eddie’s blood boil, was the boy who had interrupted his chemistry class, the one with the glasses.

 “Yowza, yowza, yowza, you’re quite a looker.” Was what he first heard coming into the room. Eddie narrowed his eyes at the boy on the floor, who he deduced must have been “Richie.” He could barely get any words out before the curly haired boy pushed himself off the floor to greet him, and stuck out his hand.

 “Trashmouth Tozier, formally yours.” The moment Eddie had heard the nickname, he figured there must be some mistake. Eddie-- the boy who didn’t go within a million feet of anything dirty-- being soulmates with someone called, “Trashmouth,”? Yes, that was definitely it. Just because Richie had glasses did not guarantee anything.  _ Anyone _ in the world who wore glasses could be Eddie’s soulmate. Eddie did not want to shake his hand to find out, so he instead locked his hands behind his back and straightened his posture.

 “Eddie Kaspbrak, and don’t call me a ‘looker.’ It’s weird, like… something my mom would say,” Eddie barked out frustratedly, going to find a spot on the floor, since every other spot had already been taken.

 “Why not? You’re cute, cute, cute!” Richie cooed, which only served to make Eddie more angry. He resisted the urge to slap Richie upside the head, which he knew he couldn’t do, because if he did, he’d know Eddie was his so-- no, nope, no.  _ Absolutely not. _

 “Don’t take it personally, Rich. Eddie’s not handsy with anyone,” Bill offhandedly mentioned. Eddie couldn’t help but notice that they weren’t watching his or Eddie’s favorite, they were watching  _ Back to the Future _ . 

 “I would never guess, judging by what a sexy-”

 “Beep, beep, Richie.” Stan cut him off with a warning glare and words that seemed to shut him up almost immediately. Eddie didn’t know what they meant, and he didn’t care. If they got Richie to be quiet, he was more than willing to adopt the phrase.

 The rest of the night went on with at least some form of normality. Stan fell asleep about ten minutes in, and Bev soon after that. Richie, however, stayed up very late, until long after the movie was over, rambling on about his thoughts and feelings during specific parts even after the film had ended.

 Ben had come in about halfway through and taken his place on the couch next to Bev, lifting her feet up to sit beneath her and intertwining his hand with Mike’s.

 Eddie purposefully distanced himself from Richie when he fell asleep, so that they were on opposite sides of the room with a coffee table between them. As he fell asleep, all he could think of was Richie’s all-too-obvious flirting. Did he know?

_   He can’t know. He can’t know. He can’t know. He knows. _


End file.
